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attend an intensive.

      Ken: There are two parts to the process. There is a large, sort of educational kind of class didactic period where the larger group comes together, and then there are small groups for the actual processing and therapy work. Then they come back into the larger group to do things that help to move the whole group along. The small groups are kept to approximately six people. The most we will take is probably three groups, so the size of the total group is no more than probably eighteen.

      Carol: So that really is very manageable, isn’t it?

      Ken: Absolutely. When you’re doing a large lecture, or you’re doing something like a bonfire, we take them through a process where they let go of old wounds and they use the bonfire as a ritual. We have virtual experiences to help move them along. We’re very excited about that. We also have that for the men in the mother-enmeshed men workshop as well. I don’t know if you want to get to that or hold off for the moment for that.

      Carol: Let’s go ahead and segue into that, because I think that is probably the workshop that most people would be most curious about. I know that a lot of my listeners don’t necessarily even understand enmeshment in general. Can you explain what that is?

      Ken: Sure.

      Carol: You used the word “incest.”

      Ken: Let me start with “enmeshment,” which is a little more tolerable of a word. Back in the 70s or 80s, 80s for sure, the family therapist at the time began to notice that too much closeness between generations in families was linked to somatic disorders [having a significant focus on physical symptoms — such as pain or fatigue — to the point that it causes major emotional distress and problems functioning] in children. When they began to work with separating the grandparents from the parents and the parents from the children, they began to notice that the somatic symptoms of the children decreased. What they began to postulate was that you can have too much closeness in a family system, where the closeness becomes intrusive and engulfing and guilt-producing and burdensome. It’s the opposite of what we typically hear in dysfunctional families when we think about neglect and abuse. This is where the family appears very close, and in many ways is very close, but oftentimes in some of these close systems, the closeness can be too much. One of the particular pieces of that kind of system can be what we call a “parent-child enmeshed relationship,” in which the parent is overinvolved with the child, at the cost of the child’s own identity, their own separateness, their own individuality—all the way from mothers being jealous of their son’s girlfriends and vice versa with fathers and daughters.

      When I talk about “covert incest,” that’s referring to the enmeshed relationship beginning to feel like it’s a romantic relationship. Think about sons and mothers in this case: “Not only is my mother too engulfing and making me feel guilty all the time, but she’s treating me like her boyfriend. That feels terrible to me, icky.” Even though there’s no physical sexual touch, the relationship can feel very much violating sexually. In other words, “I have to be loyal to my mother; my mother is my girlfriend rather than having a girlfriend,” for example.

      Sometimes that can occur very innocently, if you will, so anybody who is a parent knows that. I’m a parent and my wife is a parent and we have a son, and I’ve seen this unfold in our family. Any parent has a normal love affair with their child, right? It’s a special kind of love, and it’s very sweet. This concept of enmeshment is not meant to degrade or criticize that kind of relationship, but when the parent uses the child to get their needs met, that’s a problem. This workshop is particularly for men and you see a lot of this issue with men and their mothers, particularly among the sex addict population, but not limited to that group. This workshop is focused particularly on men, because I think there are a lot of men who go untreated around this, and I wanted to create a workshop for them.

      What happens when these men and boys are playing the role of their mother’s surrogate husband, listening to their complaints and their sexual frustrations about their father, feeling as if they have to be angry with their dad on behalf of their mother, and they have to declare loyalty to their mom; what occurs is that in adulthood, these men cannot commit. They can’t be committed in a relationship or they’re overcommitted at a cost to their own lives. Most often, the set of symptoms and problems that we see with these men who as boys played the role of surrogate husband to their mothers is that they struggle to commit; they have sexual difficulties; they have a lot of guilt and anxiety, sometimes depression; they have tremendous problems around loyalty issues. In other words, they declare loyalty to the wrong people and have a difficult time setting boundaries and saying, “No, I don’t want to do that.” They put their mothers before their wives and their girlfriends, or their partners if they happen to be gay. Their loyalty is to their parent rather than to themselves or their partner or spouse.

      I got a letter today in the mail when I got into the office this morning. It was from a woman from Arizona and her name was Danielle. I won’t say her last name, but she wrote to me and said, “I read one of your books.” I have two books on this topic. One is When He’s Married to Mom, and the other is Silently Seduced. She said, “I blamed myself for the breakup of the relationship with my boyfriend, who I thought was the love of my life, but I could never compete with his mother. I read your book, and it was the first time that I felt understood by somebody who knew exactly what I was going through. This man would never commit to me, and I was always in competition with his mother. I lost him to his mother. I had many well-meaning friends who told me I should hang in there, and I did hang in, but to no avail. His loyalty will always remain with his mother.”

      I created this workshop so that these men can begin to identify that issue and begin to separate and unhook from their mothers, so they are free to commit to a romantic relationship of their choice. I’m very excited about it. It’s the first time I’ve ever created a workshop of intensives. “Workshop” is the wrong word. Workshop implies it’s almost an educational format. I don’t want to misstate it. It’s very much an intensive therapeutic process.

      Carol: Obviously, the partners of these men realize they can’t compete, and there is this unusual bond and Mother comes first. Yet if you’re a man, you may feel … I think the word you actually used was “icky.” You may feel like it’s too close, and you’re never enough, and you’re like a surrogate spouse and companion, that kind of thing. So are men able to talk about this? It would seem almost taboo for a man to talk about this kind of relationship with his mother.

      Ken: Well, you know, that’s a good question. First of all, he’s not likely to talk about it. Oftentimes these men are seen as weak or soft, and they’ve been ridiculed as good boys, so they’re not likely to talk about it. Boys are not likely to even be aware of it. They almost normalize it, right? “What I’m doing is normal. You don’t understand, honey; this is my mother. You just have to be patient.” The spouse or partner always feels like they’re in the backseat of the car, always the one witnessing the relationship. Often I will have women, girlfriends or spouses of these men, who actually claim that they feel like the other woman. They feel like the affair partner. Not surprising, these men can have affairs, because they can be free in an affair, an uncommitted relationship, because it’s no threat to Mother.

      Carol: Makes sense.

      Ken: They can be free with pornography. They can be free to see prostitutes, but they often shut down sexually and emotionally with the primary partner, because it feels so disloyal. Most of these men do not talk about it. Many aren’t even aware of it. They might be aware that they are angry and frustrated. They get tired of their mother calling all the time or asking them to change a lightbulb on Saturday night. “Can’t you do it yourself?” you think. Or they tire of their mothers “calling up and talking to me about your fight with Dad; I don’t want to be involved.” They may be very well aware of feeling frustrated, but they wouldn’t necessarily identify the relationship as dysfunctional or enmeshed or inappropriate or icky. They may have forgotten as a boy those moments that felt too close and too icky. They may have suppressed that or more than suppressed, they may have disassociated it, removed themselves, put into another compartment those feelings, only to act them out with pornography or prostitutes or affair partners.

      Carol:

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